


Does Anybody Know How to Get to Sherman's Planet?

by NervousAsexual



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/F, Paintball, Shore Leave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-18 16:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11294055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: When it comes to picking locales for shore leave, the crew of the Enterprise turns to good old-fashioned paintball. The winning team gets to choose a destination anywhere in Federation space. No two people should have all that power...By their powers combined Uhura and Rand make something truly amazing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isilanna (Betazoa)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betazoa/gifts).



Across the darkened battlefield many a body was strewn. At the base of a tall pine, collapsed in a pile of sap-damp needles, lay Spock. Bones knelt at his side.

"He's..." he called into the darkness. "Jim, he's..."

"Leonard," Spock said.

"Yes, Spock?"

"Leonard, you will go on without me."

"I will do no such..."

And suddenly someone shot him in the head with a pink paint ball.

"Ow!" Bones leaped to his feet and looked wildly about in the darkness. "Who did that?"

A flash of red blew past and then there was nothing.

"Dammit," Bones shouted into the silent woods. "I'm a medic, not a skeet target!"

"All is fair in love and war games," Spock observed, lifting his hand from the yellow paint ball splat on his chest.

"Yeah, well." Bones stood up as tall as he could and shouted into the forest, "Now hear this! Just because you don't want to go to Georgia on our next shore leave does not mean you get to shoot me in the face!"

Another pellet caromed out of the forest and struck him square in the chest.

"Was that really necessary?" Uhura asked as Rand climbed up into the tree beside her and Bones rolled about on the forest floor, wheezing angrily. "The headshot was probably legal."

"Do  _you_ want to end up in Georgia on a technicality?"

Uhura had to admit she did not. "Good point. what do we do now?"

Rand considered. She had traded her miniskirt uniform for a redshirt security uniform with the sleeves ripped off. One of the sleeves was tied, commando-style, around her forehead, and for good measure she'd stabbed a plastic dagger through her beehive hairdo. She was ready for this paintball battle.

"I have no plans," she said.

Uhura shook her head in mock disgust. "Okay, then I'm officially taking over this dog and pony show. Let's put our heads together. On the off-chance we lose this thing, who's the one pair we don't want winning? Spock and McCoy are out so we're not going to Georgia. Who else had a terrible idea?"

Rand shrugged. "I'm just trying to get to Sherman's Planet."

"I know. I know, and I concur. But we need to play this safe and possibly diplomatically. Who wants to go where?"

Rand put her head back and frowned in thought. "Hmm. Chekov would choose Russia, obviously, and he partnered up with Riley. But Riley wouldn't want to go to Russia."

"But between the two of them we have the risk of Russia or Ireland."

"That's true. We should probably go after them first."

"Got it."

"Who else? Scotty and Christine partnered up, I think, and they wanted to go to Tellar Prime."

Uhura shuddered.

"Yeah, sounds like frostbite waiting to happen, but there is always the option of cuddling beside a roaring fire." Rand wiggled her eyebrows seductively at Uhura, but it was very dark and Uhura didn't respond. "Okay, that's out, I guess. That leaves Sulu and M'Benga. And I think together they're a wild card."

"What about Kirk?"

"The captain? I don't think he's playing."

"Hmm." Uhura sounded less than convinced. "That seems unlikely. Wasn't paintball his idea?"

Rand held up a hand for silence and stared down into the forest. The two sat in silence for a moment.

"Sorry," Rand said at last. "Thought I heard something."

But the only sound to be heard was Dr. McCoy swearing increasingly nonsensical swears in the distance.

"We should probably split up." Rand tucked as many loose ends of hair as she could into her beehive. "We don't want to get caught together and get taken out in one fell swoop."

"No, I suppose swooping is bad."

"Got your ammo?"

Uhura patted her purse. She had removed her usual collection of make-up, snack food, emergency Klingon-English phrasebook, and sub-micron scanner and replaced it with as many pink paintballs as it would hold. The purse still held her tribble-patterned stress ball, however--one never knew when that would come in handy.

"And your gun?"

Uhura brandished her paintball gun.

"Kiss for good luck?"

Uhura smooched her on the cheek, and Rand smooched her back.

"I'm going after Riley and Chekov, unless I run into someone else first. What's your plan?"

"Stalk Christine, of course," said Uhura. "No, wait, that sounds ominous. Shoot Christine. Follow Christine?"

"Engage Christine and Scotty in a mutual battle with respect to where we will go on shore leave."

"Yes, that. Let's call it that."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Well," Rand said at last. "Good luck."

"Same to you."

And they went their separate ways.


	2. Chapter 2

Chekov ran wildly through the woods, shooting over his shoulder and screaming as he went. Behind him in hot pursuit came Uhura.

"Stop!" she yelled. "Stop and let me shoot you!"

 "Riley!" Chekov shrieked. "Riley, where are you?"

Suddenly something big crashed down through the pine boughs and Chekov slammed bodily into a familiar yellow uniform.

"Sulu!" Uhura slid to a stop at a safe distance.

"Sulu?" Chekov looked up and indeed it was Sulu standing over him. "Oh Sulu, thank goodness. She was going to shoot me! And then she and Janice are going to enact their terrible plan to take us to..."

Sulu silently pulled out his paintball gun.

"Sulu?" Chekov asked, his voice very small this time. Uhura sidled over to take cover behind a tree. "Sulu, we're friends, you don't have to..."

"Long live the king," said Sulu, and shot him in the stomach.

Uhura didn't stick around to hear what Chekov had to say to that. She wove in and out of the trees, trying to formulate a plan. Riley was gone. She'd seen Sulu put the paintball in his back herself. Sulu wasn't a great shot, not at a distance and not with a target who knew to bob and weave. That wasn't the problem. The problem was...

"Hey," Sulu said, easily overtaking her with his short but impossibly swift strides. He raised his gun and at this range he couldn't miss. "Nothing personal."

She stopped dead in her tracks and threw herself into the nearest prickly shrub. A paintball whooshed over her head and struck the branches behind her.

No. She would not lose here. She sprayed as many paintballs as she could in his direction and then rolled swiftly to the other side of the brush. There was no time for playing games now. She would find him. She would shoot him. And then she would reunite with Janice, and they would take on the rest of the crew, and they would lead the group to shore leave on that funny little planet with the six moons and she and Janice would smooch under the light of the Tiny One, and...

And she crashed through a bramble patch and came face to face with the captain himself.

"Oh, no," she managed to say, but he fired over her shoulder and a single green paintball whizzed past her ear and struck Sulu as he descended upon them.

"Good evening," Jim said. He turned the paintball gun to her. "Walk with me?"


	3. Chapter 3

The clearing Jim lead her into had already been claimed by the dead and the out. Riley was there, and Scotty and Christine. Spock was settled into a divot in the dirt with Bones napping with his head in his lap. It was only her, she realized. She, and possibly Janice, were the only ones left.

"Nyota," Spock said by way of greeting. "You do not appear to have been shot."

She stepped in front of Jim a little, show he could see the paintball gun Jim still pointed at her.

"Ah." Spock nodded. "That is most unfortunate."

Uhura had to agree.

"We're all back together again," Jim said. "All except for... where's Janice?"

"Janice?" Uhura asked. "Who the heck is Janice?"

But Jim was not fooled.

"Come join us," he called toward the woods. In the dirt Bones snorted and sat up, looking around sleepily. "I know you're out there, Yeoman."

"Don't shoot her," Janice yelled back from somewhere in the dark. "I'll come out."

"Don't do it," Uhura yelled. "He's cheating. Nobody knew he was playing!"

"The lass has a point," Scotty said. Jim shot him again in the shoulder and turned the gun back to Uhura.

At first there was only the faintest flash of red, but soon Rand appeared from the dark. She still held her gun, but her hands were raised.

"Sorry," she said to Uhura. "But I can't risk it, not with you on the line."

"I understand," Uhura said as Jim turned the gun to Rand. "I just wish we could have gotten to Sherman's Planet."

"Sherman's Planet?" Riley frowned. "What's on Sherman's Planet?"

Every one groaned.

"Tribbles, you putz," said Bones. "That's their whole schtick. They're going to make us go to Sherman's Planet and adopt a metric ton of tribbles."

"That," observed Spock, "is a lot of tribbles."

"Yeah," Uhura said. "Tribbles. I love them. Look, I even have a tribble-patterned stressball. Want to see?"

She reached into her purse but instead of her stressball she grabbed a handful of paintballs and with all her might she smashed them into Jim's face.

The peanut gallery burst into cheers.

"Hey," Jim said. "That's not legal. Headshots aren't allowed."

"Good point," said Rand, and she shot him in the stomach.

Uhura threw down her purse and Rand threw down her paintball gun and they ran to each other and Uhura leaped up into her arms and they spun around and around.

"We're going," Rand said. "We're really going."

"Sherman's Planet, here we come," said Uhura, and beneath the Earth moon they smooched.


End file.
